


Use

by Anonymous



Category: Machineries of Empire Series - Yoon Ha Lee
Genre: Ambiguously Sexual Kink, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Gen, Kneeling, Non-Sexual Kink, Non-Sexual Submission, Nonnies Made Me Do It, Post-Canon, Sub Jedao, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:16:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25343077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: (Two ficlets: Jedao submitting to Cheris. Pairing for this is probably best labeled Jedao?Cheris.)
Relationships: Ajewen Cheris & Shuos Jedao, Ajewen Cheris/Shuos Jedao
Kudos: 20
Collections: Anonymous





	Use

By mutual agreement, the two of them have begun practicing concealing their thoughts from one another. The practice is necessary if it's to be easier than trying to speak and use subvocals at the same time. Jedao, then, will hear logarithmic tables being thought very loudly in his direction, while Cheris is bombarded with mental humming that's either a tune from hundreds of years before she was born, or hummed so tunelessly that she can't recognize it. Impossible to tell. 

Avros Base isn't the last time she's had to torture him, as they root out Kujen's other remaining bases and forge alliances with servitors and moths. It's useful, he's told her as though he's still her mentor and not someone who's knelt to pledge himself her gun, to have someone with her who can take it without dying or even needing medical care beyond food afterwards. He'll let her do whatever she needs to, whatever the mission requires, offer his own hands to be restrained and bare his throat or his heart to her; she doesn't like having to do it, but she doesn't flinch, either.

And it satisfies her, in a way, to see exotic defenses crack as his skin and muscle part under the knife, or to hear the signals of calendrical change when she breaks his fingers or drowns him. She'll usually blindfold and gag him, if the situation allows. On the occasions when she doesn't, and he can see her focused gaze and the set of her lips, in addition to feeling her cold hands on his skin or in his mouth as she cuts or digs or burns into him, makes him a tool in her hands -- well, he's glad when he can manage to focus on that old Shparoi tune. At least he can cast something of a veil over, if nothing else, his mental response to the pain, even if he can't hide the way his body jerks and flinches, or any other physical responses, or choke down the sounds that well up deep in the back of his throat.

\--

For all that it's "her" Compact, "her" calendar, Cheris has remained very firm about how Brezan's the one that people need to come to for things. She has her own projects, and none of that has changed with Kujen's fall; with the discovery of the moths and servitor conspiracies, she's as busy as ever, if not more so. She doesn't keep anything that Mikodez would call an office, and when he manages to track her down for a meeting that's, shall he say, out of Brezan's purview, he suspects that she's only located herself on a planet to spare him having to crowd into a needlemoth with her and Jedao and whatever servitors they've managed to communicate with. The bareness of the little apartment reinforces this impression. Zehun was opposed to him going, but this wasn't a meeting he wanted to send a double to.

She receives him like a guest, pours tea and has a bowl of anise candies already out on the low table, and Mikodez settles himself into a chair opposite her as though at any moment, a small needle might emerge from the arm or the seat to jab him with poison. He doesn't like not knowing where Jedao's got to, and his anxiety is briefly assuaged when Jedao comes through the front door (where the Shuos guards were? perhaps it's not reassuring after all), closing it quietly behind him. But it takes a ninety-degree turn into bafflement when Jedao folds to his knees next to Cheris's chair, not even making eye contact with Mikodez first. Cheris does that for him, holding Mikodez's gaze steadily while she sifts Jedao's hair through her fingers.


End file.
